[maxbolgarin]

Summary

• gitb branch delete → "Delete these merged branches? y" failed with fatal: malformed object name --format=%(refname:short) and deleted nothing. git branch --merged takes an optional commit argument, so git read the following --format=... as that commit. The fix passes HEAD explicitly: git branch --merged HEAD --format='%(refname:short)'.
• Added BATS regression tests: one checks that the merged-branch listing works, and a static check fails if --merged/--no-merged is ever followed directly by another flag in scripts/.

Linked issue

None. The bug was reported directly with a screenshot of the failing prompt.

Type of change

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that changes existing behavior)
• Refactor (no behavior change)
• Documentation only

Test plan

• bats tests/test_branch_operations.bats: the new static check fails on the old code and passes with the fix. The pre-existing tests 4, 5 and 14 fail either way because the test container has no column binary.
• shellcheck scripts/*.sh install.sh: shellcheck isn't installed in the test environment
• Built bundle runs: bash dist/build.sh ./scripts/gitb.sh ./dist/gitb dev && bash ./dist/gitb --version
• Reproduced the failure and verified the fix on git 2.43:

$ git branch --merged --format='%(refname:short)'
fatal: malformed object name --format=%(refname:short)
$ git branch --merged HEAD --format='%(refname:short)'
main

Compatibility

• Works on macOS (BSD userland)
• Works on Linux (GNU userland)
• Bash 3.2 compatible

Checklist

• Commit messages follow Conventional Commits
• Variables in git invocations are quoted
• No new xargs -r / GNU-only patterns
• BATS tests added for non-trivial behavior changes
• README / CONTRIBUTING updated if user-facing behavior changed (not needed)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01N7bXuSKAQZEE7BsHZdjQ21

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Generated by Claude Code

[github-actions]

🎉 This PR is included in version 5.3.0 🎉

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• npm package (@latest dist-tag)

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